Standstill
by Wintertime
Summary: GSR. "She didn't know how to move on from Grissom."


Disclaimer: I don't own CSI. It would be nice, though!  
  
Note: First time with an interactive GS relationship, so I'd really appreciate some thoughts on this one.  
  
**  
  
Sara was never a romantic. She never saved love notes under her pillow or cut out photographs from glossy yearbook prints to press into a heart- shaped locket, worrying that the cut was wrong or that the golden heart- shape was too odd to ever contain a whole face. When she liked someone, she told them, when she loved someone, she told them that. When it was over, it was over, and she moved on swiftly, never looking back behind her. If her feelings were presented and rejected, she moved on after that, too, because forbidden love wasn't half as sweet as everyone said. It was just poisonous, tedious, and, eventually, dangerous. Motion was always best.  
  
That's why she hated Grissom sometimes. He kept her in standstill. Rejection and then hope; flirtation and then ambivalence, as if she was a case he routinely attacked and then, just as suddenly, decided that he couldn't solve, or, worse - - had no interest in investigating.  
  
And she didn't know how to move on from Grissom. Terri Miller did it, so she knew it wasn't impossible, but each clumsy affair was soured by the fact that it wasn't him. He kept her legs tied and her love shackled so flight was impossible and attraction undeniable.  
  
She didn't think it was romantic that she trotted out these fantasies when she worked with him, she thought it was damn sad. Depressing, too, but she kept doing it anyway.  
  
Another snapped photograph of the bent mailbox. "What do you think? Some kid with a bat, things got out of hand, became murder?"  
  
The body had been found near the end of a whole row of shattered mailboxes, with dark, bloody bruising firmly over the left ear. The last box had blood and chips of broken wood embedded into it.  
  
"I never understood this," Grissom said, coming close behind her. No cologne, but his breath on the back of her neck was warm and sweet, and scented like toothpaste and Scope. He made a gesture that included the whole block, with the limp-bird mailboxes hanging off their splintered posts. "Adrenaline?"  
  
"Rebellion." One last photograph, this time of the bloody chip on the ground, before she picked it up in latex-gloved fingers and bagged it. "If it's anything their parents don't want them to do, someone's willing to do it, eventually."  
  
"I was never that way."  
  
"No," she said, "you were a perfect child." She could hear her own sarcasm, and moved away from him, over the cool asphalt road and back to the van.  
  
"Are we going to do this all night?" He tracked her, staying out of sight, which was just as good, because she didn't want to see him. Out of sight was not out of mind, not with him, but it was as close as she was ever going to get. "Pretend like it never happened?"  
  
"You're why it never happened." Evidence locked in her kit, she closed the trunk and didn't turn around. "I asked. You said no. Game over. I've moved on, Griss."  
  
His hand, then, sudden and welcomingly invasive, touching hers. "I haven't."  
  
Sara could hear her heart speed up, and estimated the rate, thought about pulse and respiration. The calculations dizzied her, made a sheen of sweat draw over her forehead. Too hot in Las Vegas, even at night, sometimes. She thought about Harvard, Boston, and cold. Snowflakes on the soft dark fabric of Grissom's coat, and why did all of her mental wonderings have to lead right back to him?  
  
Against her will, she turned.  
  
Her voice was near-silent in the background, more movement than talk, but he could read her lips anyway, and she liked the idea of him concentrating on them. "Why'd you wait so long? Why did you make me hang onto nothing like this?"  
  
"Honey," he said. It was the only endearment he had ever used for her.  
  
"I hated you." Her teeth clicked together, the bite sudden and fierce.  
  
"I loved you," he said patiently.  
  
Sara's laugh startled the silence on the crime scene and sounded out-of- place. "Past tense, Grissom? I'm not a psychology expert, but - - "  
  
"I love you," he said. "Still. It wasn't appropriate, and it's still not, but I can't help it."  
  
Another snapped photograph of the bent mailbox. "What do you think? Some kid with a bat, things got out of hand, became murder?"  
  
"Maybe," Grissom said. "I just got a call from Robbins, he said that a baseball bat's the most likely weapon. Trace is working on the wood-grain they pulled out of the kid's wound, but it's pretty certain that it's from a bat."  
  
"Are we okay, Grissom?"  
  
"We're fine, Sara," he said, and stepped into her line of vision, smiling. The streetlights made his eyes shine, turning the pale blue almost fluorescent. He cleared his throat, and it sounded ridiculous, almost self- important, like a single-word joke. Iceberg eyes flitted down to the road, where the wooden fragment rested against the newly-tarred surface. "Bag that, and we'll take it back to the lab. Then - -"  
  
"Then?"  
  
"Then I'd like to take you out to dinner," he said.  
  
"Déjà vu all over again," she said, kneeling to lift the splinter. It slid into its plastic bag easily, and she sealed it with a faint popping noise. Her voice was cold as she mimicked, "I don't know what to do about this, Grissom."  
  
"I do." He came close and his hands were on her arms, warm and strong, and then his mouth firmly atop hers. The press became a kiss, and Grissom tasted like mint and coffee. It was a reflection into herself, and she wondered what her taste was like, to him, was nervous in a way she had never been nervous before, in a kiss, and then his hand stroked the side of her face and Sara realized that nervousness was futile, because this was all she had ever wanted, and now that she had it, she could let go of the anxiety and the unrest and the desperately hopeful fantasies, because Grissom was kissing her and it was real - -  
  
Another snapped photograph of the bent mailbox. "What do you think? Some kid with a bat, things got out of hand, became murder?"  
  
Grissom's voice, surprisingly sweet and strong as he said, "I love you, Sara."  
  
Another snapped photograph - -  
  
The touch of his hand on hers.  
  
- - of the bent mailbox.  
  
A taste like mint and coffee.  
  
"What do you think?"  
  
"I don't want to miss another chance."  
  
"Some kid with a bat - -"  
  
All of her expectations, coming true with a single touch.  
  
"- - things got out of hand - - "  
  
His breath was warm on her neck.  
  
"- - became murder?"  
  
All those fantasies and all of those possibilities that had made her stay in love, until she finally turned around and Grissom wasn't even there. Sara knelt and touched the lost piece of wood like she was wishing on it before sliding it into a bag. She wished that one day it wouldn't be just in her mind. 


End file.
